Diana Wagner (Capital Groups) | Remember in 2011 when Netflix raised prices by dividing its streaming subscriptions from its DVD service? The announcement sparked an uproar that forced the company to issue an apology and hammered the stock price. Today the world is in a very different place — and so is Netflix: The company is now a dominant streaming service and a megahit-making machine with more than 213 million…
Scope Ratings (Sam Theodore & Keith Mullin)| Regulation is one of the two main drivers of change for the banking industry (the other driver being technology). Supervisory adoption of ML for the Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP) may in turn change the way the industry and the markets assess bank credit risk. More precisely, the future use by regulators of ML for ICAAP will give a powerful impetus to…
Clemente Polo | Living in Catalonia is becoming increasingly oppressive. Even for those of us who decided one day to pack our bags and move to an Autonomous Community that stood out from the rest for its social and cultural dynamism and its cosmopolitan vocation. When I was offered a place at the Autonomous University of Barcelona after giving a seminar in June 1984, nobody thought to ask me where…
Santander Corporate & Investment | HY default rates remain low and are expected to remain so through 2022. The number of defaults in 2021 was the lowest in the last 10 years. There were 4 defaults in December, the same number as in November, mainly by Chinese construction companies; so the total number of defaults in 2021 was 54, well below the 216 in 2020 and 105 in 2019, and…
Clemente Polo | Living in Catalonia is becoming increasingly oppressive. Even for those of us who decided one day to pack our bags and move to an Autonomous Community that stood out from the rest for its social and cultural dynamism and its cosmopolitan vocation. When I was offered a place at the Autonomous University of Barcelona after giving a seminar in June 1984, nobody thought to ask me where…
Alphavalue | German reinsurer MUNICH RE has published the economic cost of natural disasters in 2021. According to its preliminary findings, worldwide, natural disasters caused substantially higher losses in 2021 than in the previous two years. Storms, floods, wildfires and earthquakes destroyed assets worth $280 bn in 2021. Losses in the previous year amounted to $210 bn$. Approximately $120 bn$ in losses were insured in 2021, which was also more…
Bankinter | The Treasury announced on Monday its Financing Strategy for 2022. The Treasury ended 2021 with total Gross issuance of €264.312 billion and Net issuance of €75.138 billion, -25% below the proposed target and -31.6% below 2020 net issuance. The average cost of debt issued amounted to -0.04% and that of outstanding debt stood at 1.64% (from 1.86% at the end of 2020).
Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | Although the chorus of voices saying Hong Kong stocks would bottom out grew louder in the last few months of 2021, we held the view that policy risk could linger for further underperformance. Indeed, the Hang Seng Index ended the year with -14%, which was a clear divergence versus other major markets. The question now is whether this gloomy picture on Hong Kong equities might…
The forecasts on the Spanish real estate sector, specifically on housing, a market, point to a new price rise of over +5% after the +4.2% that would have been recorded in 2021. The price increase would be accompanied by a recovery of sales of around 10%.
Banco Sabadell | The government has launched for public consultation (until 21 January) the proposed resolution for convening a new renewables auction, which is included in the calendar established for the period 2020-2025. It will be held foreseeably in April for a total of 500 Mw distributed between: (i) 200 MW solar thermoelectric; (ii) 140 Mw solar photovoltaic (installations > 5Mw); (iii) 140 Mw biomass; and (iv) 20 Mw other…